Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to individual landlords in the same way as to sole traders. If your gross rents plus any self-employment turnover were over £50,000 in 2024/25, you have been in MTD since 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 in 2025/26 brings you in from April 2027, and over £20,000 in 2026/27 from April 2028. Once in, you keep digital records of rent and expenses, send quarterly updates by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, and file the year-end return through software. The test is gross rent, not profit, which is why many landlords are in sooner than they expect.
Are you in? Working out qualifying income
Qualifying income is your total gross income from property and self-employment before any expenses. It is based on the Self Assessment return HMRC checks for the relevant year. Mortgage interest, letting fees and repairs make no difference. A landlord with £32,000 of rent and a large mortgage is over the April 2027 threshold even if the profit is small.
HMRC's qualifying income guidance sets out several rules that matter to landlords:
- Rent and trading income are added together. £25,000 of rent and £27,000 of self-employment income gives qualifying income of £52,000;
- Joint ownership counts your share only. A property owned 50:50 that produces £50,000 of rent gives each owner £25,000. If you only receive a net figure for your share after expenses, HMRC uses that net figure;
- Other income is ignored. Salary, pensions, dividends and partnership profit shares do not count. Income from REITs and property authorised investment funds is excluded too;
- Foreign property counts for UK residents. Non-residents count only their UK property income;
- Short periods. Landlords must annualise their own property income for a period that is not a full year.
Property held in a limited company is not affected. Companies pay corporation tax, and MTD for Income Tax applies to individuals. Partnerships are not yet included, and HMRC will set their timetable later.
What you have to record
All your UK lets together form one UK property business, so your software produces one quarterly update for UK property, not one for each property. Overseas lets form a separate foreign property business. That business needs records for each property but still sends a single update. Each digital record needs:
- The amount. Rent received, or the expense paid;
- The date. When the income was received or the expense was incurred;
- The category. The same income and expense categories as the Self Assessment property pages.
Residential landlords have a further requirement. Even if they use the simpler categorisation allowed below the £90,000 VAT threshold, they must still identify which expenses are restricted finance costs, meaning mortgage and loan interest that is relieved as a tax reduction rather than deducted from rental profit. For a mortgage payment, you can record just the interest, or record the full payment and adjust for the capital before filing.
A spreadsheet can still be used if it is linked to compatible bridging software. However, once a record has been included in an update, it must not be copied or retyped into another cell or program. Data must move between programs through digital links.
Jointly owned property
Jointly let property is where landlords most often worry about MTD. HMRC has built in specific easements:
- Your share only. You record only your share of income and expenses, and your records do not need to link to your co-owner's;
- Less detail. You can make one record per income category for each update period, and one per expense category for the year, rather than recording every transaction;
- Expenses at the year end. You can leave expenses for jointly let properties out of the quarterly updates and add them after the year ends, by resending the fourth update or adjusting the category totals before filing.
These easements apply only to jointly let properties. Expenses for any properties you own outright must still go into each quarterly update.
Deadlines and penalties
| Quarter (standard periods) | Update due |
|---|---|
| 6 April to 5 July | 7 August |
| 6 April to 5 October | 7 November |
| 6 April to 5 January | 7 February |
| 6 April to 5 April | 7 May |
Each update is cumulative from 6 April. If your property accounts run to 31 March, start records from 1 April and use calendar update periods. The deadlines are the same.
For 2026/27, HMRC will not give penalty points for late quarterly updates. However, the updates must still be sent before the return can be filed, and a late return still earns a point. From 2027/28, every missed update or return deadline earns a point, and reaching 4 points triggers a £200 penalty. Our MTD deadline guide covers the penalty rules and the year-end timetable in full.
Exemptions landlords ask about
- Qualifying income of £20,000 or less. Automatically outside MTD;
- Non-resident and other residence cases. Landlords who filed the SA109 residence pages for 2024/25 are exempt for 2026/27 only. They come in from 2027/28 if their qualifying income for 2025/26 is over £30,000;
- Trusts and estates. Trustees filing SA900 returns and personal representatives are exempt, but a trustee's own personal lettings still count towards their qualifying income;
- Digital exclusion. You can apply for an exemption on grounds of age, health, disability, location or religious belief. Having always filed on paper, or being unfamiliar with software, is not enough.
Practical steps for landlords
- Check your 2025/26 gross rents now. Add your share of any jointly owned lets and any trading income. If the total is over £30,000, you start on 6 April 2027;
- Separate the money. A dedicated bank account with a bank feed into the software makes quarterly records much easier;
- Agree the process with your letting agent. If the agent collects rent and pays repairs, decide how and when its figures will reach your software each quarter;
- Keep the year-end review. Capital or revenue repairs, finance cost restriction and replacement of domestic items relief are still year-end decisions. Quarterly updates are raw totals, not a substitute for proper accounts.
For the reliefs that apply when you prepare those year-end figures, see our guide to property tax relief for landlords. Acumon's accountants for landlords run MTD record-keeping and quarterly updates for individual and joint owners, and our Making Tax Digital service handles sign-up and software set-up.